This is the first post of a few to highlight the importance of getting enough beauty sleep for your general well being. Everyone knows that sleep is one of my favourite things to do!

When you’re trying to meet the demands of life, cutting back on sleep can seem like the only answer. How else do you expect to get through your never ending to-do list, or make time to just let your hair down and have a little bit of fun? Sure, a solid eight hours of sleep is great but who can afford to spend all that time… sleeping? Truth is, you cannot afford not to.

The importance of sleep is immense, although it seems to have been largely forgotten by our hectic every day lifestyles.

Sleep consists of a number of cycles and stages to restore and refresh your body and mind. Even minimal sleep takes a toll on your mood, energy and efficency and ability to handle stress. If you want to feel your best, stay healthy and perform up to your potential, sleep is a necessity not a luxury. Learn what happens when you’re sleeping, how to determine your nightly sleep needs and what you can do to bounce back from chronic sleep loss and how to get on a healthy sleep cycle.

The Power of Sleep

Many of us want to sleep as little as possible – or feel like we have to. There are so many things that feel more important or interesting than getting a few more hours of sleep. But just as exercise and nutrition are essential for optimal health and happiness, so is sleep. The quality of your sleep directly affects the quality of waking life, including your mental sharpness, productivity, emotional balance, creativity, physical vitality and even your weight. No other activity delivers so many benefits with such little effort.

Understanding Sleep

Sleep isn’t merely a time when your body and brain shut off. While you rest, your brain stays busy, overseeing a wide variety of biological maintenance tasks that keep you running in top condition for the day ahead. Without enough hours of restorative sleep, you’re like a car in a need of an oil change. You won’t be able to work, create, learn or communicate at a level even close to your true potential. Regulary “missing your service” and you’re headed down a path of physical and emotional breakdowns.

It’s not just the number of hours in your bed that is important. It’s the quality of these hours of sleep – even if you are giving yourself plenty of hours of a sleep each day but still have problems waking up in the morning or staying alert all day, you may be having some problems with the different stages of your sleeping cycle – especially deep sleep or REM sleep. By understanding how the sleep cycle works and the factors that lead to those cycles being disrupted, you’ll be able to get the quality and quantity of sleep needed.

The Sleep-Wake Cycle

Your internal 24 hour sleep-wake cycle otherwise known as body clock is regulated by processes in the brain that respond to how long you’ve been awake and the changes between light and dark. At night, your body responds to the loss of daylight by producing melatonin, a hormone that makes you sleepy. During the day the sunlight triggers the brain to inhibit the production of melatonin to keep you alert and awake.

The sleep-wake cycle can be triggered by numerous factors including, irregular sleeping patterns, working night shifts or travelling across different time zones. The disruption can cause you to feel groggy, disorientated and sleepy at inconvenient times. The production of melatonin can also be disturbed by being deprived of sunlight during the day and being exposed to too much artifical light of a night time.

How Many Hours of Sleep do I Need?

Worldwide, the average adult sleeps less than seven hours per night. In today’s society six to seven hours of sleep per night sounds fairly good, however its just a reciepe for chronic sleep deprivation.

While sleep requirements will vary from person to person, on average a grown adult needs between seven and a half hours to nine hours of sleep each night. Children and teens need even more sleep and despite the notion that older people sleep less, they still need seven and a half to eight hours of sleep each day, and often they have trouble sleeping these hours can be subsituted with short naps throughout the day.

So, Poutlings, on that note – I think I need a nap. More info to follow soon.